March 9th, 2011

Today, for posterity, I captured a list of challenges that we had on this trip, specifically up to today:

We arrived to a driving rain and tornado warnings that made our 20-minute drive to the place we were staying take an hour

We had a team member who was very sick for the first three days we were there

Up until Mardi Gras day, once we gave up our first parking spot in the French Quarter, we were never able to get another one. The height of our vans (one 12-passenger and the other 15-passenger) precluded us from entering parking decks, and street parking at Mardi Gras time is impossible

The other co-advisor and I missed the Katrina movie at the IMAX theater, because we couldn't find a parking place (never did—parked illegally and pretended to talk like we were just temporarily stopping to decide on something)

I took 90E instead of 90W by mistake on our way to the movie theater one night, which caused us to get lost downtown and the team to arrive after the movie start time

Tracy fell on a wet floor spot in the theater

The first time I put gas in my van, I put in the wrong zip code to verify the card, and then I tripped over the hose trying to step over it to close the van door, and skinned my knee

More tornado warnings Tuesday evening, and Wednesday morning, our first day at the Habitat site

No one from Habitat or Americorps to meet us upon our 8:45 arrival to work at 9; turned out we were supposed to be there at 9:30, not 9:00